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Homelessness, Veterans and Health

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I teach nutrition at a local shelter every Wednesday morning, and the week before last I did an impromptu survey about how many people in the class were homeless because of a medical problem. There were sixteen people in this class, and two out of the sixteen said they were there because of a health issue.  Two out of the sixteen were Veterans and were not the two who said they were there because of a health issue. Just an off the cuff ‘survey’ (I use that term loosely) but very interesting. I obviously did not ask how many in the class had some form of mental illness, but as we all know many of those on the street are mentally ill. Homelessness, health care and Veterans are interwoven.  Poor health is both a cause and a result of homelessness. I’m not sure what we do about this as a nation, but I do what I can personally. My thinking has always been that if everyone did something to prevent this cycle of homelessness, we’d go a long way to solving the problem.

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